A study conducted on pregnant women who received the COVID-19 vaccine proves their efficiency.
What We Know:
- Originally, pregnant women were not included in COVID-19 vaccination studies leaving mothers-to-be wondering whether or not they should receive the vaccine. On Thursday, a study published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology determined that pregnant and breastfeeding women who received the shot show a similar immune response similar to that of women who have not conceived or given birth.
- According to NBC News, the study was conducted at two separate medical centers using 131 women of reproductive age. Out of those participants, 84 were pregnant, 31 were breastfeeding, and 16 were used as the control group. All the women received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.
- On top of that, the study found that pregnant womens’ antibodies are able to be passed down to their unborn children through the umbilical cord blood and breast milk, meaning that their children can be born with immunity to the deadly virus.
- Although there is only limited data available about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women, the CDC does state that pregnant people are more likely to suffer severe illness if they contract COVID-19. “Based on current knowledge,” their website states, “experts believe that COVID-19 vaccines are unlikely to pose a risk to the pregnant person or fetus because the currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines are non-replicating vaccines and cannot cause infection in either the mother or the fetus.”
Dr. Iffath Hoskins, an OB-GYN at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York admitted, “There’s a whole big bucket of ‘We don’t know,’” she said. “In my personal opinion, there’s a bigger bucket of ‘We do know that Covid sucks and it’s really bad for everybody, including a pregnant woman’.”
